many times i've been told all this talk will make you old so i'll close my eyes won't look behind movin' on movin' on so i'll close my eyes won't look behind movin' on ♪ [applause] craig: thank you, mibling. thank you very much. michael kiwanuka, everybody. good night.

>> fight night at the debate, following a debate unlike any we've ever seen. 9 news brings you coverage unlike any in town. tonight the combined power of two news rooms. 9 news joins with usa today for instant fact check. the candidates traded insults hot and heavy all night. now who was right. a little heated tonight, as

president obama and mitt romney face each other in their second presidential debate. three weeks from today, one of them will be named our nation's next president. and tonight, we've got team coverage. did the candidates tell the truth as they sparred in the debate tonight? well, anita brikman is at usa today headquarters in maclaine. she's got the fact checkers with her. and we're at the university of maryland where students are weighing in on the candidates' words. first gary nurenberg, i think we agree never seen one like this before. >> reporter: this was nothing like the first debate. when you're asleep you can get nightmares. after the nightmare of the last two weeks for president obama who was accused of being asleep during the first one, he was totally awake for this one. an off-tv prediction. >> it's going to be a great night. >> reporter: it started with smiles but got in your face fast. >> when governor romney said we should let detroit go bankrupt, i said we're going to bet on american workers.

>> you took general motors bankrupt, you took chrysler bankrupt so when you say i wanted to take the auto industry the bankrupt, you actually did. >> what governor romney said just isn't true. he wanted to take them into bankruptcy without providing them any way to stay open. >> reporter: in your face. >> it's not true. >> how much did you cut them by then? >> governor we actually produced more oil. >> how much did you cut licenses and permits on federal land and waters? >> governor romney, here's what we did. >> i had a question and the question was how much did you cut the -- >> i'm happy to answer the question. >> reporter: target women voters. >> in the last four years, women have lost 580,000 jobs. i'm going to help women in america get good work by getting a stronger economy. >> reporter: target women voters. >> a may difference in this campaign is that governor romney feels comfortable having

politicians in washington decide the health care choices that women are making. >> reporter: the president talked about the governor's investments abroad. >> mr. president, have you looked at your pension? have you looked at your pension? >> i've got to say -- >> mr. president, have you looked at your pension? >> i don't look at my pension. it's not as big as yours. >> reporter: there was a lot of the past. your record. >> the president's policies have been exercised over the last four years, and they haven't put americans back to work. >> reporter: there was a lot of the future, my plan. >> that's why i put in a 5 point plan. >> governor romney said he's got a five-point plan. he doesn't have a five-point plan. he has a one-point plan and that plan is to make sure folks at the top play by a different set of rules. >> reporter: a lot of listen to the moderator -- not. >> governor, i've got to actually -- i need to have you both -- i understand the stakes here. i understand both you, but i will get run out of town. >> i just described, mr. president, i just described to you precisely -- >> reporter: but when the

governor questioned whether the president had the day after called the libya attack an act of terror, the moderator provided the answer. >> it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in ben ghazi an attack of terror. >> he did in fact, sir. let me call it an aact of terror. >> reporter: mile while there was no absolutely clear winner tonight, the president's space will be happier believing this will stop the slide and the governor's supporters will say he did well holding his own. the question is what's the impact on those crucial undecided voters, the real target for both men? polls on that in the next day or so. anita? >> gary nurenberg, thank you. it was contentious, it was heated, but was it the truth? we are fact checking here in the usa today news room with the political team joining me here now, political editor paul singer. one big claim on jobs that romney said again he will create 12 million new jobs in his first plan and has a five- point plan to do this.

let's listen to that soundbite. >> the unemployment rate was 7.8% when he took office and is that now. but if you calculated taking back the people who dropped out of the work force, it would be 10.7%. we have not made the progress we need to make to put people back to work. that's why i put out a five- point plan that gets america 12 million new jobs in four years and rising take-home pay. >> so he says president obama's plan has not moved the economy forward fast enough and his will create these 12 million new jobs. is that true? >> probably not. the economic forecast already call for and anticipate the american economy creating 12 million new jobs. regardless of whether it's the president's plan or romney's plan. now, romney does have proposals out there that would theoretically create more jobs, like doing more energy projection domestically. he says we will achieve north

american energy independence during his tenure. i would not doubt that would create more jobs. the 12 million figure has been badly criticized by a lot of folks. that's what the economy is already going to do. how does your plan change that? it's not your plan doing it. >> the energy issue became very contentious in this debate. later we'll talk about that, gas prices and what each candidate had to say about the other's plan. derek, back to you. >> thank you, anita. a lot of folks probably had debate-watching parties tonight and probably enjoyed themselves a great deal, quite frankly. out at the university of maryland, some students who want to make a career out of politics were watching and weighing in. deborahdebra is live on the campus. >> reporter: 40 political students met in this courtroom to watch the second presidential debate. just like they could possibly be the future leaders themselves, they used some technology that could shape the way that you and i watch debates or even 9 news in about

a minute, i'm going to give our viewers a chance to do that, too. inside university of maryland, public policy grad students are watching, reacting and tapping on their smart phones. >> it's just not true. >> it's absolutely true. >> reporter: to be clear, it was a lopsided crowd. >> how many registered democrats, show of hands. anyone registered republicans? >> am i the only one? >> i'm one of the only republicans in the school. i don't know what the numbers are, what the percentage is, but you know, i don't mind. >> you want me to answer the question on that? i'm happy to answer the question. >> all right, and it is? >> reporter: as the debate heated up; so did the tapping. it's a new technology developed on campus from react labs that lets us react in real time. they have four choices, agree, disagree, spin or dodge. >> you'll get a chance in a moment. i'm still speaking. >> reporter: tonight they could have also included clash.

>> for the average voter i don't think it plays very well to see them bickering with one another. >> there are a couple of things i disagree with, but overall it's a time for change. >> think obama is doing better tonight? >> he's doing better than he did last night. we'll see if he's doing better than mitt romney at the end. >> reporter: so you saw that technology that we used in that story. i'm getting you a chance to weigh in you have four things you can tap on. let me know what you think of the debate tonight. tweet me and i will read some of your comments later on in this show. >> definitely could have used that clash button, debra. thank you for that as of tomorrow, mitt romney will be in leesburg, virginia. he'll be attending a rally at ida lee park. doors open at that event at 4:30. it gets started at 6:30. you need a ticket to attend and you can get them at the victory offices in arlington, loudoun or sterling. we put all the addresses right on our screen.

now, stick with us. we've got a lot more debate coverage ahead. we'll check back in with anita brikman and the fact checkers at usa today. plus a look at what people were saying on twitter about tonight's debate and there was a whole lot of tweeting going on. moving on to social security, saving it as a matter of fact. a 1.7% cost of increase will go into effect but for millions of americans that is not stuff. our ken molestina is live to explain why recipients of social security may be struggling to scrape by with that. >> reporter: social security benefits continue to be a highly contested issue during the election season. following the announcement of the living adjustment the debate is taking center stage. >> reporter: alberta has been retired since 1990. she's battling breast cancer and depends on her social security. now, she wants her fair cut. >> we are not asking for a handout. we are asking for a hand up. >> reporter: help she says in

getting back from a program she invested in her entire life as a postal worker. >> we have already paid our dues, as long as we have worked. >> reporter: the new plan outlined today will raise social security by 1.7% or about $21 a month. however, with the inflated cost of things like gas, energy, food and health care, the increase will be swallowed up. in effect, giving recipients little to no extra money. >> everything else is going up while you're staying the same. that's the stressful part. your life is controlled by the cost of everything. >> reporter: it's a battle being fought by the national committee to preserve social security and medicare. >> we're supporting the consumer price index for the elderly which we believe is a better and more accurate measure of inflation. >> reporter: he says if the index is followed, social security recipients won't be struggling just to keep their head above water. mrs. gaskins is looking at what lies ahead, looking to make tough decisions like paying for her cancer treatment or keeping

the heat on during the cold monthsi'm our survival will be heard loud and clear. >> it will go into effect january of next year. derek? >> ken molestina thank you. >> two hikers who got grantedded

seeverage team findy found them. new tonight, hundreds of people filled san francisco city hall honoring a hometown hero killed half a era away. he and three other americans were murdered last month during an attack in ben ghazi. he went to college at berkeley and dedicated his life to serving his country. we also gather to celebrate. the immense accomplishments this man has made for us. >> that attack is under investigation including whether or not the security was insufficient. >> tonight, health workers in virginia report a second person has now died of mention jilt tills linked -- meningitis linked to steroids. agents from the fda and the justice department raided that facility, looking for evidence regarding the tainted drugs. members of congress want to know whether the company

violated any laws or regulations. the nationwide meningitis outbreak killed at least 15 people and made more than 200 others sick. did president obama and mitt romney tell the whole truth, nothing but the truth tonight? unlikely. we'll take you back to usa today to see what the fact checkers have to say. i'm meteorologist topper shutt. here's your wakeup weather. maybe a light jacket tomorrow but not crazy cool. 44 to 54, 5:00. 42 to 52 at 7:00. coldest time of the day, 7:00 a.m. 48 to 58 with sunshine at 9:00. we'll come back, tracking

welcome back to 9 news and our special coverage of this second presidential debate, which was a contentious one in a town hall style meeting. one of the most intense back and forth exchanges between the candidates came when they were talking about energy prices.

and all of energy prices, energy costs and our own energyself-sufficiency and all of that launched by a resident who just wanted to know, mr. president, what are you doing about my gas prices? let's listen . in >> your energy secretary, has now been on record three times stating it's not policy of this department to help lower gas prices. do you agree with the secretary that this is not the job of the energy department? >> paul singer joins me once again. even though the question was specific to gas prices and candy crawly tried twice to get these guys to go back and specifically talk about keeping them under control, they each just wanted to talk about their own energy policies. why is that? why avoidance of this issue? >> because there's precious little a president of the united states can do to control gas prices. gas prices are wildly volatile, controlled by things like economic growth. if there's a lot of demand because there's a lot of business activity, the price of gas rises. the price rises in the summer

because a lot of people are driving. not a lot a president can do to make it change in any given moment p. the highest gas prices were president bush in 2008. they talk about other things they can do which is broader energy policy. >> has energy production gone up or down under obama. >> up, however, it is also true that he has not yet approved a giant pipeline through the midwest of mitt romney saying his number one priority, create a lot of energy, create a lot of jobs. >> we see things from both sides about what they would do going forward. thank you and your entire team for fact checking. derek back to you. >> thanks for shedding light on a night we had no shortage of heat. the internet was blowing up tonight during the presidential debate. joining me is our social media editor, and we'll get to how many tweets there were later, but twitter launched something new. let's hear about this first.

>> this is a cool new feature called the twitter political index. it's to determine the candidate's likeability amongst the twitter. they take every tweet and claim they figured out a way to measure how you feel about the candidates in these tweets. they then compare these posts to every other tweet sent on any given day and come up with a fiver ability score -- favor ability score for each. tomorrow we'll see if that changes. >> that will be interesting to look at. we should note that this thing went crazy on twitter tonight. in fact, about 45 minutes in, twitter sent out a note saying we've had more tweets tonight on this than we had throughout the entire vice-presidential debate last night. millions and millions of people. which ones caught your eye? >> there was one major thing people were talking about and one major trend we've seen

during the debate season is the parody twitter account. in the second debate, laughing joe biden was created. tonight's big hit is this, romney's binder in response to mitt romney's references to the binders full of women he had during his time in the private sector. in his first 30 minutes of activity, the account surpassed 11,000 followers by simply tweeting women's names like teresa, monica and sarah. on top of that there are political reports that the binders full of women.com were taken moments after romney's comments. >> i'm a little jealous, because the binder has more followers than i do. simon, we thank you for that. we've got to take it up to topper shutt who can tell us what the weather is looking like. >> really pretty nice. live weather cam brought to you by michael and son. 52. dew point 42. really not that chilly out. winds calmed down and the

pressure continues to rise albeate slowly. temperatures in the 40s in the suburbs. 46 in rockville. 46 in bethesda. 41 gaithersburg. 45 great falls. temperatures will level off soon as the winds continue to shift out of the southwest. a little more moisture comes back into the atmosphere. you need your sunglasses tomorrow, no doubt about that. a little abit milder on wednesday. 65 today. a little bit below average or average high is 70. afternoon thunderstorm is still possible on thursday. we're lucky, it's going to hold off until after the evening commute. the other good news, still mild on thursday. we should hit 70 again on thursday. overnight a clear to partly cloudy, just cool. 42 to 52 should do it. winds already pretty much light. by morning, partly cloudy and just cool, maybe a light jacket. temperatures in the 40s and 50s. winds out of the south at 5 to 10. kind after warmer direction. then by afternoon, partly cloudy and milder. it will become breezy late.

high temps around 70. winds kick a little bit out of the southeast at 10 to 15. the next three days, code green tomorrow. very nice wednesday. looking at partly cloudy skies and 70. code green on thursday, because of those pesky showers and thunderstorms later in the day. the bulk of the day is pretty nice, 71. mild on friday, code green, 72. yes, we've got a drop hanging off here, maybe a shower overnight on friday. don't think it's going to impact the high school football games. next seven days, gorgeous on saturday. university of maryland homecoming, terps in town. we're looking at temperatures around 65. also howard university's homecoming. a nice weekend really. back up to 70 with sunshine on sunday. mid-70s on monday and mid-70s also on tuesday with showers and thunderstorms. so actually a pretty nice stretch of weather. very nice tomorrow, a few showers on thursday, derek. >> thank you, topp. a few moments ago debra asked you to share her thoughts. what do you know so far? >> a couple of people are

weighing in. we wanted to ask because we wanted to have you weigh n just like the students here at university of maryland weighed in before on that react lab's app. here are a couple of tweets. let's see, roger custer says, i am not surprised there was such a minority of republicans at umd. just to let you know roger, a couple more people did end up showing up. hold on. let's see what else we have here. next one from joe, lots of spin and dodge from obama. he's hoping people forget he is the prez and most people aren't better off than four years ago. liz says someone needs to address mitt romney in the next debate about maryland being number one in education, not massachusetts. someone needs to call him on it. again, thanks so much for everyone weighing in with your tweets. you can always tweet me and we'll be right back.

hockey players have been locked out for two months now.

millions of dollars have been lost. the nhl season was supposed to start last friday, but now if the league gets their way, it could start next month. today they offered the players association a deal calling for a 50/50 revenue split. that would be contingent on the season starting november 2nd and all 82 games being played. that means teams would play at least one extra game every five weeks. the players association has about ten days to make a decision. the lady terps basketball team getting much love from the pundits today. thomas selected as preseason player of the year. the lady terps were picked to finished second in the conference. the blue devils sit on top for the 8th time. redskins players had fun today on their day off at hollywood elementary school in college park teaching them some dance moves. they might want to work on them a little bit, too. josh morgan has some strict advice from the kids on how to

lead successful lives. >> all you guys, work hard, and just stay fit. stop playing the play station games, eat healthy, leave the candy alone, even though it's halloween candy. just a one-time if you eat candy. >> finally tonight, as reporters live situations like right now we always have to be on our toes. you never know what's going to happen, like a football falling out of the sky and hitting him in the face. that was ian rapaport, a live report from the packers game. >> right back on his spot. >> right back on his spot. we deal with those types of situations every now and then.